Guest post series - 'Filohax' No. 29 - Paul

Thanks very much again to Paul for this next instalment of his wonderful guest post series. 
You can find all of the 'Filohax' posts here.   

Indexing your life- 'one binder to rule them all'

 

If anything is going to bring people back to Filofax and journalling in general it's Doom scrolling...(If you don't know already, it's wasting hours every day disappearing down digital rabbit holes)

I've been a devil for it, and once I got diagnosed as a doom scroller (only joking...or am I?!) I realised I needed something to fill the gap. That's where a wonderful post by Samm Menzies got me hooked on 'Indexing',

 

which described keeping a master index of her Filofax insert content to make it easy to reference any subject mentioned in any of her binders. What struck me as the 'killer benefit' was not having to trawl through the individual indexes of each Filofax to find a subject that may have been covered in a number of different binders. Instead the dedicated master index can be your first port of call. For example, in my section showing the letter 'c' for entry 'cafe' you can see from the third column (which is for the location/s that the subject is located) there are three different places that I've written about cafes. The locations can be separate binders, sections within binders, physical books, or online resources - it's up to you. 

Structure 

I decided early on to use the vintage Filofax 26 letter A-Z tabs - only made possible by housing my index in a massive ringed Cavendish personal (and since then expanded into two Cavendish!). If you're going to take this seriously you will quickly realise you will need the capacity!

Each page covers only one letter, and the beauty of ring binders (versus bound binders) is that it allows constant expansion - which you will need. 

First column 

The first column is the subject, 'cafe' in this example (I'm getting ahead of myself, but the little circular symbol underneath with an arrow pointing backwards denotes that there is also 'cafe' content earlier in the 'c' section, and guess what it means if the arrow points forward?!). The subject can be as practical as cafes that you have visited, or more subjective subjects such as 'Emotions'... and everything in-between.

Second column 

 

The second column is where the content's short description goes. The content here should be descriptive of the full item you are pointing towards in the source binder. What I have come to realise from doing this for a few years is that you are collecting data in doing this, and once you have data, information, facts, statistics can be used for various purposes, including analysis, decision-making, and communication.

Third column 

The third column is the location of the item in your collection. Unlike an index in each of your binders, the master index places all references to a key word together, making it more efficient to retrieve information from multiple sources.

It also doesn't have to reference just a binder - you could reference any book in your library or an online resource (you can see in the 'Cafe' example the word 'Google' - there are files I only have in Google notes!) 

Fourth column 

The fourth column is for the date of the entry. As you may notice, the entries aren't always in date order - you might fill in an item from one location that is actually before its predecessor. Part of me is freaked out by this, but at the end of the day this is just giving me a staging post for easier information retrieval.

Indexing benefits for journalers 

I must admit that initially I started this project on faith that Samm was on to something, but the real benefit of the index system became clear to me once I started to input information into the index from my daily journalling practice. 

Have you ever tried looking for information on a subject in your journals, but had to give up as there is too much information and you can't even remember which year to search in? Now all I need to know is what letter of the alphabet that subject begins with and the index gives me everything relating to it - which ever binder it resides in and however many dates.

Difficulties 

Sharp eyed readers may have noticed the biggest problem with indexing - it's impossible for all entries within a letter tab to be alphabetical - it's highly unlikely that the first word that you write in 'A' section will be 'Aadvark' and the last 'Azyme'! (I've also come to realise that you never finish an index ..)

This is because compiling a master index is ongoing and very organic, therefore you just have to scan through the pages until you find the word you are looking for - which has its own pitfalls, such as when searching for one keyword but getting distracted by another one that catches your attention! The only way to ensure truly alphabetised entries is to use a new insert for every new word. It's do-able but you would end up needing a library to house all of your master indexes! I have pondered if A.I could take on the task - and print off, crop, and hole punch the inserts for me! 

Questions 

Q. But where do you find the time to keep it up to date? 

A. Where this article began - I used to find time for doom scrolling (insert your own time wasting activity here!) so it's not that you don't have time, you've just chosen to spend it in an unfocused way.

My method? On a Monday I review all new content in my binders from the week before, making choices of what I need to index and what can stay un-indexed (again it's up to you but you would be surprised what may be interesting in 6 months time, so record everything.)

Q. You surely don't need to reference that much information unless you're a researcher or your biographer?! 

A. I don't at the moment, but what I'm beginning to realise is that you aren't just making a master index for the current you, you're making it for future you too, and who knows, your descendants?

Q. I use my smartphone for everything, and the search facility on my email can do this better? 

A. There are two answers to this very good question. The first - where is the first email that you ever wrote, and the important information within it? It's probably easy to find that (most probably not). But how about that journal you kept in an online app 15 years ago that closed down five years ago, leaving you with a link to a document that requires a specialist piece of software to access? Or if I bring things up to date - what happens when a ' bad online actor' (enemy state hackers) figure out ways to permanently take down online facilities that we all imagine existing forever? Ask British company Marks & Spencers about that likelihood... The second answer is simple. If you are reading this I know that you place value in physical binders, and writing within them. A master index becomes the 'one binder to rule them all', something that you love to pick up and open, contribute to, that builds up over a year, a lifetime, into a record of your life - and times. Something I'm guessing that your descendants will thank you for...

Regrets 

I'm a student of 'make a start' rather than 'make it perfect' as I know from experience that I'll never start if I waste my enthusiasm energy on over planning. Thus, I decided to start where I stood and move forward with what was in front of me - an insert with the letter A on both sides, all the way up to Z. Next, I took the previous day's journal entry and added each keyword to its insert - 'Cafe' to 'C' - and if the second word beginning with C happened to be 'cyan' then after leaving an amount of space to fill in all future mentions of the word 'cafe' (the whole two sides!) then I would add 'Cyan'. Big mistake. This means that I have to trawl through all of the 'C' inserts to find 'cyan' (or whichever c word I want to look up) instead of flicking to the last insert under 'C' section.

For anyone interested in starting their own life index - alphabetise by first, second, and third letters if possible!

 

Who knows, reordering my master index might become my first retirement project

“A good idea is not of any use if you can’t find it.” —Logan Heftel